My parents made it pretty clear to us that when we were graduated from high school that they expected us to go out and get jobs and leave home. I think they felt that when we were adults, it was time to leave. My little brother stayed the longest. He moved out at around 23 years old.

I know of a guy who is living at home and he is about 40 years old. He is a nice guy who has never married. He has never left home. He has a job where he doesn’t make very much money. He doesn’t act as if he plans to move out any time soon.

At what age is it time for a parent to tell their son or daughter to move out?

Let me try a hypothetical situation.  Pretend you are playing a basketball game.  Pretend that you are really thirsty.  You are tired.  The guy next to you drinks out of a water bottle. 

Would you drink after him from the water bottle?

The Super Bowl this year will be the Seattle Seahawks vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers.  They will play on Feb. 5, 2006.

Seahawks or Steelers?

On January 31, the President will give his annual State of the Union Address. This address is given every year by the President of the United States to a joint session of Congress. I think you all know what that means. For an over an hour on Tuesday evening your favorite program is going to be interrupted.

The President is going to lay out his agenda for the coming year. The whole idea is for the President to tell exactly where our nation stands. It is an opportunity for President George W. Bush to tell the nation what condition he thinks our country is in.

What do you think is the current state of the union?

In my last post I asked if those who were socially challenged tended to gravitate to xanga.  In the comment box, someone asked about me.  Did I make friends easily or with difficulty?  Was I an introvert or an extrovert?  It is so hard to answer questions like that about yourself.  But I had a friend tell me once that I was a megavert.  He thought I was outgoing.  I think I have always made friends quickly.  I am the type though that has a few friends that I pretty much have forever.  In other words, I make general and superficial friendships quickly but am slow to make my best friends.  I tend to keep those best friends for life.

Are you an extrovert or an introvert?  Does that come across in your xanga personality?

I was talking to someone recently that said they thought that people who developed dating relationships online were probably the type who struggled making relationships in real life. I wondered if that principle applied to people who made friendships through xanga.

Are the people who gravitate toward journals on xanga more likely to be the type who struggle socially in their day to day lives?

Recently I posted and asked the question of where people thought they were going when they died.  A majority of people said they thought they were going to heaven.  There were many that weren’t sure where they were going.  I don’t think one person said they thought they were going to hell.

Why do you think no one believes they are going to hell?

While I took a step back away from xanga, I thought about some changes I could make to my site if I came back. One of the thoughts that I had related to censorship. I have never been one to delete and block people from my site. I have blocked and deleted about 10-15 people. That probably sounds like a lot to some people. But the main reason I have blocked and deleted people is because some people will come by and try to leave 30 comments in a row. It is rare that I will delete someone for any reason beside making a ton of comments in a row.

I have tried to make my site a discussion group. I am not a writer. I just throw out the discussion issue and let the issue get discussed. Because of that I have been reluctant to delete people. Even if someone came to my site and told me that I was a complete idiot, I didn’t want to stifle the voice of someone that disagreed with me. I always thought that such an approach would cause everyone who disagreed with me to have the potential to be deleted. So in order to avoid deleting other opinions, I avoided deleting.

I think you always need to be open to feedback even if it is negative. I really don’t get bothered by negative feedback on my site anymore. I just read it and take it as an opinion. If someone thinks I am an idiot, than so be it. Everyone gets to read what someone says of me.

I have been tempted to delete recently. About two weeks ago, someone who was critical of me came and visited my site and said something on the first page that I knew would get that person some traffic. I was tempted to delete that person. I decided to not delete that person. I would hate to cause that person to not have the right to say I am a complete idiot.

Would deleting difficult people lead to less diversity in the debate?

I was watching the Today Show this morning for a few minutes and I caught a segment in which they were discussing couples sleeping together. They had two people discussing the issue of the healthiness of couples sleeping in separate beds. One person was saying that she thought that for some couples it would be better for them to sleep in separate beds.

She was coming from the perspective that some people struggle to sleep in the same bed with another person who may wake them up. There are those who move around a lot and will cause the other person to have less sleep. Another lady was concerned that the impact on the relationship can be lost intimacy.

Would sleeping in separate beds impact the intimacy in a relationship?

I have been thinking about coming out of retirement.  I miss posting.  If I do decide to come out of retirement, I am going to have to make a few adjustments.  Most of those adjustments you won’t notice so I won’t bother mentioning.  One adjustment I will need to make is to modify my subscription list.  I only subscribed to people to let them see my protected.  I need to drop my subscriptions so I can narrow it down to a few.  I respond to those who comment.  So I am just going to drop almost everyone I am subscribed too.  I respond to those who comment not a subscription list.  I am just announcing this so people don’t get surprised when I drop them.  I will understand if you decide to drop me. 

Here we go:

Medical cost have gone through the roof.  Many people pick what job they are going to work at in large part by what kind of medical plan they can get.  Companies put a great deal of money into those medical plans.  More and more people are struggling to keep up with bills when they get behind because of medical bills that have stacked up.

There are those that offer a solution to this problem.  They suggest that we could place a cap on how much a person can sue a doctor.  The theory is that if a cap is putting on the amount that a person can sue a doctor, the insurance rate for the doctor will go down.  They say that will cause the doctor’s bill to decrease.

Should a cap be placed on the amount a person can sue a doctor to try and decrease the cost of medical bills?